Tank (early tank formations on both sides lack the infantry elements to make them economic/good defensive units anyway), Mechanized and a few infantry divisions out from the front at Leningrad and Moscow, and create two diversions: One serious push south of Lake Ilmen

I second MT's take. Russians don't have the morale to go on offensives like that. They can hardly march into unoccupied territory, and were they to accomplish it they'd march straight to the camps anyway. I find the Tank and Mot Div to be very strong defensive units (especially those in SW Front), and try to preserve them by falling back before they can be encircled whenever possible. My only attacks as the Russians before the rain are necessary efforts to break a pocket (when numbers allow) to delay its liquidation, and against spearheads that are within easy reach of an onslaught of units. Those opportunities are rare. Most of '41 is maneuver to make the German advance as MP expensive as possible in order to slow it while the army is drafted.

With respect to the this war - Western Front seems kind of out of the fight at the moment. I'd rather tempt him to run away from his supply to the NE by making a thicker wall between Moscow and thinning the approach to Kalinin. He has a lot of turns to try and close that last 80 miles to Moscow before the rain. It looks like he'll be 40 miles from the outskirts in another week. The more hexes he has to fight through, the more supplies and ammo he burns, and the more fatigue he endures. Much easier for the Soviet to rotate forces and utilize reserves when the focus narrows at Leningrad and Moscow. Has his rail bridged the Dnepr yet in the south? Where is the rail head for AGC?

ORIGINAL: Michael T I think the risks involved (the destruction of the entire attacking forces) in a major attack by the SU before winter 41 far outweigh any possible gain. ...

My focus has been and continues to be maintaining as strong an army as possible for winter 41/42, maintaining the defensive hubs of Leningrad/Moscow and evacuating as much IND as possible. All other considerations are secondary. Any forces that would be sacrificed in any major attack would be far better employed defensively and if they survive will inflict much more pain during the winter than they possibly could right now. The SU simply has no teeth in the summer of 41. The best you can do is prey on German mistakes.

I have to mark that statement... Maybe I still plan to game too much on what capabilities each side shown by history, rather than the "game truth". I think the SU is not all that toothless, but you need luck to make it work, else yes, it will turn in a disaster a Russian player may not be able to recover from until the last day. In contrast to the past, where the Soviets create plentiful of such blunders in 41 as well as in early 42, and early 43, but each time they recovered.

Such a local counteroffensive south of Lake Ilmen was one reason Pzgrp 4 and 18th Army were delayed closing on Leningrad, and could not concentrate all the forces there as siginificant mobile units and infantry were needed to secure the right flank suddenly.

I think in the next patch they ought to attempt to give the SU a little teeth for 41 & 42. Maybe a 5 or 10 morale point bump across the board, and a little (1 hex) randomization of starting positions? I think the toning down of the manpower the did a few patches earlier was also a bit towards the low side now. In return, maybe a slight adjustment of the alternative VP conditions may be needed for game balance in PBEM? What would you guys think?

I agree, historically and in many other games major Soviet attacks were/are feasible in summer 1941. But not in this game. You are courting disaster in WITE unless you are way way in front. I don't know what the answer is because any change can make such a big difference in overall game balance.

I think one problem is that the Axis can move so far in any one move that as the SU you can't risk trying to defend a salient. So you are always forced to give ground. This is why these very narrow thrusts work for Axis players. The SU just can't risk trying to hold the ground between the drives. If you do you will end up losing everything in the salient. So you are forced to move back to a line roughly perpendicular to the lead Axis units, pretty much on a continuous basis.

It would be very easy to change the game to give the Soviets some offensive capability in 1941. An across the board increase in morale would do it. Over time, Soviet morale norms have been steadily ratcheted downwards. They cannot do what they did on release. I guarantee you that if those old morale norms got restored, we'd never hear the end of it. But people wanted a helpless Soviet chewie toy, and that's what they got. Grats.

Morale is going down now all the way to September of 1942, to a low of 45. This is absolutely abysmal. In practice, it is often less than this, as the Soviet is flooded with a bunch of 30ish morale reinforcements on the east edge of the mapboard, and the remnants of the border fronts (particularly NW and W) are often sub 40 morale as well. A 35 morale unit is quite useless for anything but German target practice. I go out of my way to get those remnants killed, btw. You are quite often better of with a shell returning from the deadpile than trying to train such a hopeless unit up. As for the eastern reinforcements, you're stuck with those due to AP constraints.

Over the course of 1941, between TOE changes (the awful 41b rifle division is the main culprit here) and the morale drop, the Red Army grows weaker. The blizzard temporarily covers this up, but when that's gone, your morale is still mostly a wreck and won't really turn around until the end of 42.

I second MT's take. Russians don't have the morale to go on offensives like that. They can hardly march into unoccupied territory, and were they to accomplish it they'd march straight to the camps anyway. I find the Tank and Mot Div to be very strong defensive units (especially those in SW Front), and try to preserve them by falling back before they can be encircled whenever possible. My only attacks as the Russians before the rain are necessary efforts to break a pocket (when numbers allow) to delay its liquidation, and against spearheads that are within easy reach of an onslaught of units. Those opportunities are rare. Most of '41 is maneuver to make the German advance as MP expensive as possible in order to slow it while the army is drafted.

With respect to the this war - Western Front seems kind of out of the fight at the moment. I'd rather tempt him to run away from his supply to the NE by making a thicker wall between Moscow and thinning the approach to Kalinin. He has a lot of turns to try and close that last 80 miles to Moscow before the rain. It looks like he'll be 40 miles from the outskirts in another week. The more hexes he has to fight through, the more supplies and ammo he burns, and the more fatigue he endures. Much easier for the Soviet to rotate forces and utilize reserves when the focus narrows at Leningrad and Moscow. Has his rail bridged the Dnepr yet in the south? Where is the rail head for AGC?

Those strong tank units have a jaw of glass. They are literally one shot guys, and that's it. Their mobility is crap, and they are armament and vehicle hogs.

Here is what you do with tank units: take them off refit, and put them in combat situations where they will hopefully get routed off the map and return back as tank brigades. For good measure, you can also jack down their TOE to 50%. The weaker they get, the higher the chances they'll go away. Your quartermasters will be grateful for this. The real red army in 1941, such as it is, is cavalry and rifle units. The entire swarm of mech you start with is junk.

Gorforlin, Leningrad falls every time to the Axis. That's cheese. Nobody complains about this. We just suck it up and deal with it.

The business up north is merely a way to mitigate the damage resulting from the virtual autoloss of Leningrad. Otherwise, the Axis runs amok post Leningrad on the northern end of the map (some Soviet players continue to insist this is perfectly ok, but there you go.)

Give Leningrad some real ability to defend itself, and then we'll chat about the Finns.

Some of the Mech units have a morale of 45+ and 10K of men. They are ok in non open ground. But yeah sub 40 morale Tank xx full of BT7's etc are pretty crap. But still useful because they have a a zoc and if stacked with a decent INF unit can be tough to dislodge with a hasty attack. So use then in the second or third line where deliberates are less likely.

Gorforlin, Leningrad falls every time to the Axis. That's cheese. Nobody complains about this. We just suck it up and deal with it.

The business up north is merely a way to mitigate the damage resulting from the virtual autoloss of Leningrad. Otherwise, the Axis runs amok post Leningrad on the northern end of the map (some Soviet players continue to insist this is perfectly ok, but there you go.)

Give Leningrad some real ability to defend itself, and then we'll chat about the Finns.

As expected like Pelton(GHC) you will sink to any depth to defend your sides (SHC) cheese.

Nothing new here Flaviusx defends his cheese by calling the german's side cheese more cheesy, heheh you should run for political office.

Bear in mind that even if you remove Michael's optimizations, the Soviet can always rush stuff up there after Finland activates. It may take more units and the line may stabilize further east, but short of forbidding Soviet units from going into Karelia, this is always going to be doable. It's just a question of how much the Soviet is willing to spend to do it.

Also, your outrage is highly selective. I don't see you complaining about far more egregious maneuvers such as the Lvov opening.

The Soviets must have their own gambits and responses. If you just want to play against a punching bag, fire up the AI.

Bear in mind that even if you remove Michael's optimizations, the Soviet can always rush stuff up there after Finland activates. It may take more units and the line may stabilize further east, but short of forbidding Soviet units from going into Karelia, this is always going to be doable. It's just a question of how much the Soviet is willing to spend to do it.

Also, your outrage is highly selective. I don't see you complaining about far more egregious maneuvers such as the Lvov opening.

The Soviets must have their own gambits and responses. If you just want to play against a punching bag, fire up the AI.

The point about the Finnish cheese is two-fold: 1) The whole point of keeping 7 Ind. Army static is to represent the SURPRISE of the Finnish declaration of war.

2) It is a classic violation of the spirit of the rule, combined with an example of the favoritism always shown the Soviet side.

Finally, Leningrad falls without loss of anything meaningful, but to Flavius, if the German can do ANYTHING better than its historical advance, then the game is FUBAR.

On point 1, we have my complaint against the best players of the community. As with the empty HQ muling and the Army Airbase fuel dumping, good players found a way to FUBAR the game's intended construction. Simply rail the units you want close enough in one turn that on the next turn, they can finish their move to Lake Ladoga. Where before attempts to reinforce up here resulted in units being forced into static mode (in the spirit of preserving Finland's surprise attack), now someone's found a way to get around that. Great job. You broke the game (again). It's now less fun for everyone but you!

On the second point, game design is hard-coded for the Axis here: they have no ability to do anything meaningful about this exploit. Why? BECAUSE FINLAND'S ATTACK LIMITATIONS SOUTHWARD ARE HARD CODED AND PERMANENT. Finland NEVER has the option of doing more than it did historically until Germany takes Leningrad. And Finland cannot give any meaningful help in that pursuit because of these attack limitations (which admittedly are based in history). So you take a north map edge that is fixed, along with complete security that if the Finns can't go north around Ladoga, they are literally meaningless in the game now. Not only have you discovered a way to exploit the rules, you can simultaneously laugh at the Axis for its sad, hard-coded limit on Finland's usefulness to the war.

Once again: there is absolutely nothing preventing the Soviet from waiting until after Finland activates, taking his lumps, and reinforcing Karelia anyways. And shutting them down. It will cost them more, they will need more units to do it, and they'll stop them a 2-3 hexes east of the choke point. But it can still be done. (I have done it.) Are you proposing that the Soviet should never be able to do this? Exclude them from Karelia entirely and forever? Because short of doing that, you can't stop the Soviet from making the strategic choice to stop the Finns.

This is no different in principle, and a lot less game breaking, than the Lvov pocket. I'll give up my Finnish option when you give me back SW Front.

Very, very few games feature the entire Finnish front and most leave it out due to design considerations. In this case, the Russians are taking advantage of the edge of the map to prevent a Finnish move to the Svir river. The Finns also can't cut the Murmansk rail line in their theater of operations because it isn't on the map.

In reality, if the Russians made a stand where they are now, the Finns would simply outflank them through the forests and have a good chance to pin them against the lake for a major disaster.

Map and game limitations are what they are and the Finns get to benefit later by fighting on a narrow front if/when the Russians decide to attack and take out Finland later in the game.

In the mean time, I would not have the Finnish troops up there getting hit for attrition. I would look to launch a winter offensive in the area to kick the Russians loose if it became beneficial to do so since the lake will be frozen and so will the rivers.

Klydon, in this case, the Soviets are trying to stop the Axis from taking advantage of a too weak Leningrad and having the Finns running hundreds of miles east of the Svir river as is happening to everybody who does a historical Svir defense. People seem to think this outcome is completely ok. Well, then I'm completely ok with doing something to stop that.

If the Russian player wants to waste a strong army holding back the Finns then that's all good as I see it.That's one less army holding me back where it really matters.There's nothing East of the Volkhov worth having anyway, it's a strategic dead end. I do think there's something to be said for preventing the reinforcement of 7th ind army before the Finnish activation though.

You don't need preactivation shenannigans to stymie the Finns. Nor even a hugely strong army. Here's what I did in my last game, playing straight up. Note all the backline stuff is in reserve mode and reserves activated pretty much anytime a combat occurred. Rifle brigades are actually quite handy up here.

The real red army in 1941, such as it is, is cavalry and rifle units. The entire swarm of mech you start with is junk.

They're the main reason I've won battles so far in '41 south of Leningrad.

I personally don't get into the min-maxing of disbanding corps HQs, or particular battalion SUs, or other onmap units before the AI scripts do it for me. I'm usually scraping the barrel for counter to contest every reasonable terrain strongpoint west of Moscow anyway. Even low morale units can dig. It's turn 8 and I have something like 173k trucks and need 102k. Disbanding formations before I have to isn't really saving me anything if it is creating a parade path for the Wehrmacht. The morale of those units doesn't let them do counter thrusts such as Tukhachevskii might have imagined, but they can often move more ably than their foot counterparts to where I need them when I need them. If I can get a Tank Div and a Mot or Rifle Div into a city, the Axis are usually better served trying to go around rather than through, which raises his MP costs, and achieves my ends anyway.

I'll start my AAR once we're a few more turns in so my counterpart can participate and I can avoid giving away intel that might change his strategic focus prematurely.

Thanks, MT for the view of rail. I think I understand the other lines, but the manner in which they overlap has me not sure. Those are particular motorized MP from rail ranges, yes?

You do not need to manually disband the mech units. The point is to encourage them to autodisband by starving them of replacements and putting them in bad situations where they will often rout -- right into the replacement pool as their brigade counterparts.

I get much better results counterattacking with rifle and cavalry units due to peculiarities in the combat model. They have a better chance of passing the final adjusted 2:1 odds due to sheer numbers of elements. Pieter has complained about this forever, as a matter of fact, the combat model as is (this may be changing) is biased in favor of small arms and infantry elements over AFVs for purposes of control.

The real red army in 1941, such as it is, is cavalry and rifle units. The entire swarm of mech you start with is junk.

They're the main reason I've won battles so far in '41 south of Leningrad.

Since u bring it up ur self. I'd suggest the reason is another. Ur opponents seemingly lack of understand of the command system and how it affects modified CV. OKH is presumably 100 hexes away and is the commanding HQ along with various other penalties......... Since i dont know ur opponent could u alert him please so he has the chance to "defend" him self, if he is so inclined.

Put the 20% back and what is the CV? Still not 150... If the Russians have stronger units, I'd like to know where to find them in August '41.

If u know how the command system works u can usually as german at this time get modified CV up to around 3-4 times initial. He has no chance of improving his modified CV as the command HQ is OKH. Had he had a more effecient understanding of the system and doing what needs to be done, those 3 divs with out the initial command penalties would commonly have modified CV around 400-500ish. Booting ur division, presumably removing half or more of the tanks in that div. Making it the 1 shoot wonder as per Flav above description i totally agree in.

I'm playing A Game, I think he peruses the forum, but I'll make sure he's aware (don't know if he's spending his AP points in other ways and just expected to roll the single stack).

Do the Germans typically expect to triple their CV in each battle? As Soviet you're happy to not see CV go down (and why I was trying to understand Helio's comments about superior Soviet C&C). That's why I warned MT that he could still see the northern flank at Janisjarvi crack, I've seen it happen.

Still waiting to hear about those other 150+ CV Russian units in August '41... I'll take one shot over no shot.

I'm playing A Game, I think he peruses the forum, but I'll make sure he's aware (don't know if he's spending his AP points in other ways and just expected to roll the single stack).

Thank you.

quote:

Do the Germans typically expect to triple their CV in each battle?

Yes the average modifier when attacking as german at this point in time, IF u know how to place HQs both those directly in command and those above in the chain of command will commonly get up too 3-4 times modified CV. While at the same time to the largest possible extend avoid the command penalties from different commands. It all matters some. Sure u can miss all or some rolls why i write commonly. No garanties, but with the set up a game has in this example the chance is virtually zero.

quote:

As Soviet you're happy to not see CV go down (and why I was trying to understand Helio's comments about superior Soviet C&C). That's why I warned MT that he could still see the northern flank at Janisjarvi crack, I've seen it happen.

Exactly. Hench my previous post in other places noting how the engine currently works bias modified CV greatly for the attacker assuming ppl know how to use the system. It works the same tho less so in favor of russian side later on. The "problem" in this case is getting enough eng value to negate the forts. If one is able to get that those positions are nothing modified CV wise.

quote:

I'll take one shot over no shot.

Ofc who wouldnt, just agreeing in that they tend to be one shot wonders and in this case disagreeing with on why it has the succes u descripe em to have. Not that it dont have succes in this case, but more to the reason why. I'll suggest that with better german sided C&C it wouldnt have succceded in this case.

Once again: there is absolutely nothing preventing the Soviet from waiting until after Finland activates, taking his lumps, and reinforcing Karelia anyways. And shutting them down. It will cost them more, they will need more units to do it, and they'll stop them a 2-3 hexes east of the choke point. But it can still be done. (I have done it.) Are you proposing that the Soviet should never be able to do this? Exclude them from Karelia entirely and forever? Because short of doing that, you can't stop the Soviet from making the strategic choice to stop the Finns.

This is no different in principle, and a lot less game breaking, than the Lvov pocket. I'll give up my Finnish option when you give me back SW Front.

If you get SW front back, Germany will never get across the Dnepr. I'd be happy to play you 17 turns to prove this point. The only reason Lvov has been left alone is because the hindsight advantage is SO large on the Soviet side (factories, railroads, retreat capability, command and control, etc.)

Now we can add another giganto-advantage: You know the Finns can't attack Leningrad.. You you have nothing meaningful defending that area, and were it not for the certainty you have that Finland can't attack there, Finland could take Leningrad for the Germans, and then where would your game strategy be.

It's exploitation of a hard limit that the Axis has against a soft limit that game-breaker players (no disparagement meant) for the Soviet have now learned how to game-break.

ORIGINAL: heliodorus04 Now we can add another giganto-advantage: You know the Finns can't attack Leningrad.. You you have nothing meaningful defending that area, and were it not for the certainty you have that Finland can't attack there, Finland could take Leningrad for the Germans, and then where would your game strategy be.

Can you provide any historical references to suggest that Finland would've played anything other than the relatively passive role (other than to regain previously lost territory) that it did during the Continuation War?

Now we can add another giganto-advantage: You know the Finns can't attack Leningrad.. You you have nothing meaningful defending that area, and were it not for the certainty you have that Finland can't attack there, Finland could take Leningrad for the Germans, and then where would your game strategy be.

It's exploitation of a hard limit that the Axis has against a soft limit that game-breaker players (no disparagement meant) for the Soviet have now learned how to game-break.

I have to disagree on this assessment about Mannerheim and the Finnish war aims.

They had made promises to Russia in the past and those included that they would not attack Leningrad.

There is absolutely no way the Finns were going to be drawn into a urban fighting scenario because they knew casualties would be high; something the Finnish high command was very sensitive to. They would also throw away every advantage they had over the Russian army in terms of small unit tactics, mobility in forests, etc.

In addition, Finland also realized that even if the Russians were defeated, they were still going to have the Russians as neighbors and at some point, payback was going to come and having been independent for a very short period of time, I imagine that Finland did not want to do something that would put that status into doubt down the road.

Every indication is that the Russians in fact left token forces facing the Finns and the Finns still would not advance to assist AGN in the siege of Leningrad.

I liked how FITE/Scorched Earth treated the Finns as an optional rule under the Finnish war aims section. The highest chance was the Finns would adhere to what they did historically, but there was a small chance they would be more aggressive (including attacking Leningrad) along with a chance that the Finns would be more conservative in their war aims. It seems like a good trade off simply because the Russian doesn't know for sure what the Finns can/can't do and has to play accordingly. Perhaps something in the future as a optional rule for WiTE.

ORIGINAL: Klydon Very, very few games feature the entire Finnish front and most leave it out due to design considerations. In this case, the Russians are taking advantage of the edge of the map to prevent a Finnish move to the Svir river. The Finns also can't cut the Murmansk rail line in their theater of operations because it isn't on the map.

In reality, if the Russians made a stand where they are now, the Finns would simply outflank them through the forests and have a good chance to pin them against the lake for a major disaster.

Map and game limitations are what they are and the Finns get to benefit later by fighting on a narrow front if/when the Russians decide to attack and take out Finland later in the game.

In the mean time, I would not have the Finnish troops up there getting hit for attrition. I would look to launch a winter offensive in the area to kick the Russians loose if it became beneficial to do so since the lake will be frozen and so will the rivers.

Nice, at times on needs to take a step and look at the bigger picture. I tend to agree with you, the tactic to use the map border to bottle up the Finns is a bit borderline. I have wished the Murmansk area to be part of the map and the contest since the beginning, but well, it perhaps wasn't a decisive area for the conflict. Though, it would have been neat if one could take Murmansk, and the lend-and-lease would be reduced accordingly. Cut the Baku railroad at Astrachan as well, and lend-and-lease ought to be reduced to a trickle. There were no other suitable all year ice-fee ports for that, at least not after the entry of Japan into the war, right?

Anyway, a neat rule to mitigate this "map-border" case would be to allow Finnish attacks on Leningrad if the Russians contest them North of a certain line. Does anyone know about the Finnish involvement and general politics at that time? Why did the Finnish not attack Leningrad directly? Because it was too well fortified and defended, because they feared a counterattack on Finnish territory from there? Or was it purely "political or irrational"?

Ah, I just saw your above post...

quote:

ORIGINAL: Klydon They had made promises to Russia in the past and those included that they would not attack Leningrad.

I.e. the Finns had a no attack stance at the start? When did they change it, and why?

Sigh. Here we go again. We can't have discussions about what really happened because it's pointless. So PLEASE, allow me to show you the military assessment facing Mannerheim:

Mannerheim faces the scenario of trying to retake historically Finnish territory (yes, Finland is a relatively new country, but it's original boundaries extended into the Ladoga-Onega territory.

So, Mannerheim faces two fronts of conflict: A 30-40 mile front along lake Janisjarvi as in Flavius' screenshot that is defense in depth, behind a river, into dense woods more than 80 miles deep, where every step his army advances weakens its logistics posture.

He also faces a 40-mile front between the Baltic Sea and Lake Ladoga that is defended by second-line troops, is not more than 10 miles deep, across light woods and clear terrain that leads to the only port north of the Neva river that can supply Leningrad, and in which the maximum extension of his supply line is about 50 miles.

You want me to believe that he's NOT going to take the path that offers the best strategic advantage across the most tactically and operationally sound terrain and that faces the least enemy resistance (up to the city limits)?

How ****ing high are you people? I'm talking realism here in the face of the exploits a hindsight-enabled Soviet is taking. Please: give me a reason why Finland, with its low tolerance for casualties, is just going to smash its head into Flavius's defense and do nothing to the Karelian peninsula when it's ripe for the taking.

I'm not talking about city fighting here. I'm talking about an operation to achieve limited results - the isolation of Leningrad. Upon surrounding Leningrad on the Neva/Ladoga perimeter, and when Germany reaches the Neva, Mannerheim would no doubt believe that he could offer favorable and amenable terms of surrender to the Leningrad garrison, allowing Soviets to avoid Nazi POW camps, possibly even permanently winning back the lands lost in the Winter War (until Germany proves it can't win the war, at which case new negotiations might be necessary, or more fighting, but he'll have an army in better condition than had he tried to fight north of Ladoga).

Please. If Finland is forced to fight the northern route, it might as well not activate.